In Pécs last winter with 8 other special women.
Last winter I was hugely encouraged by a weekend getaway to the Hungarian city of Pécs that was organized by some friends for all the female members of CEO and their friends. I’m so blessed to be considered a ‘friend’. That weekend helped keep me sane last winter, and I knew fairly soon after it that I wanted to plan something similar for other women I know or are aware of in my Calvary Chapel/this part of the world circle. My goal was to give these women, and myself, some time away from regular life, away from stress, away from kids, away from ministry jobs/titles/expectations. Just some down time; some good, old fashioned girl time – complete with food, lots of talking, some shopping, encouraging one another and praying for one another. Not much else. As missionaries or pastor’s wives, most of the ‘getaway’ time will be more along the lines of conferences – with schedules, meetings and the like – I did not want any of that. I also wanted to ensure the women could be home by Sunday, the busiest day of the week for most of the women I wanted to invite.
Our nice dinner Thursday night.
I began with two dear friends I don’t get to see very often, asking about their schedules and if I planned a gathering in Szeged, if they would be able to come. I then asked them who else they thought could use such a gathering and refreshing time, and then added some other women I knew of also in need of refreshing. We ended up with eight women total, including myself and the pastor’s wife from here in Szeged. The rest came from Romania or Serbia, I was the only one there not a pastor’s wife. Three of us are American’s, all married to natives here, the rest are natives but English was our common language.
Everyone got a yummy Milka chocolate bar, as well as the CD and notebook from my church – such a blessing.
I found a hotel in town with suites, so we could use one of the living rooms as our meeting place. It was also right downtown and central to so much in town so we could walk around together easily. One of the first steps I made, in planning our weekend, was asking our home church in Colorado if they’d like to come along side me in this. They were such a blessing, and I was able to invite the women with no cost to them, as my church could cover the hotel and food expenses – meaning all the women could come! Mile High Calvary’s Women’s ministry also got involved in such a precious way. Their annual Women’s Retreat was just in September, and I was able to give them the names of the women coming to this, for them to pray for at their retreat and for their women to connect with. They also sent us CD’s of the sessions from that retreat for each of us, along with nice notebooks as gifts – and the most touching notecards made out to all of us ladies from several of the women at the retreat – sweet notes of encouragement with verses and support. Those notecards meant so very much.
Outside Szeged’s Arkad shopping mall – yes, we had plenty of time to wander and look slowly, with no children pulling us, or bored husbands waiting. It was wonderful!
It was a really special weekend. All of us women who came together were dealing with many similar issues, and could encourage one another. I only knew a few of them really well, and the two women from Romania were new to all of us – but by Saturday we were bonded and much closer, all of us having close friends now, just an email or phone call away. We spent Friday night in sweet prayer for one another too, something desperately needed. We are also already making plans to gather again, not in the same manner, but for many of us we’re not all that far away and we know we need each other and this weekend was the catalyst we needed to push us to reach out and make seeing each other happen more often. Maybe an IKEA/Budapest trip in January – it was discovered there are some who have never been, we need to rectify that!
Ending on a sweet note…
We’ll be sending more official ‘thank yous’, but I wanted to take a moment and thank the many people who helped make this weekend possible – those who prayed, and those from Mile High Calvary who gave of their resources to bless a group of women on the other side of the globe who desperately needed blessing.
lakatosfamily 